Secret police forces are associated with totalitarian
regimes, as they are, by definition, used to support the political power
of an individual government or regime rather than upholding the
common rule of
law.

Secret police forces are accountable only to the executive branch of the government,
sometimes only to a dictator. They operate entirely or partially
in secrecy, that is, most or all of their operations are obscure
and hidden from the general public and government except for the
topmost executive officials. This semi-official capacity allows the
secret police to bolster the government's control over their
citizens while also allowing the government to deny
prior knowledge of any violations of civil liberties.[1]

Despite such overview, there still exists the possibility of
domestic-security agencies acting unlawfully and taking on some
characteristics of secret police. In some cases, certain police
agencies are accused of being secret police and deny being such.
For example, radical groups in the United States have at various
times accused the Federal Bureau of
Investigation of being secret police. [2]

Which government agencies may be classed or characterized, in
whole or part, as "secret police" is disputed by political
scientists.

Contents

Control

A single secret police service has the weapons to arrogate to
itself complete political power. It may therefore pose a potential
threat to the central political authority.

In dictatorships, the secret police is often
headed by a close relative of the dictator e.g. Saddam Hussein,
as head of the State Internal Security Department, pushed aside the
president but he put his secret police under his first cousin Ali Hassan
al-Majid.

In addition, it has an interest in seeing political enemies even
if they do not exist. In extremis, it may manufacture such enemies
e.g. Yevno Azef a
double agent for the Okhrana
participated in the assassination of Plehve to whom the Okhrana
reported.

Methods and
history

A Stasi automated machine to
reglue envelopes after mail had been opened for examination

Secret police not only have the traditional police authority to
arrest and detain, but in some
cases they are given unsupervised control of the length of detention, assigned to
implement punishments independent of the public judiciary, and allowed to
administer those punishments without external review. The tactics
of investigation and intimidation used by secret police enable
them to accrue so much power that they usually operate with little
or no practical restraint[3].

Secret-police organizations employ internal spies and civilian informants to find protest leaders or dissidents, and they may
also employ agents
provocateurs to incite political opponents to perform illegal
acts against the government, whereupon such opponents may be
arrested[4]. Secret
police may open mail, tap telephone lines, use various
techniques to trick, blackmail, or coerce relatives or friends
of a suspect into providing
information.

Secret police are notorious for raiding homes between midnight
and dawn, to apprehend people suspected of dissent[5][6][7].

Secret police have been used by many types of governments.
Secret police forces in dictatorships and totalitarian
states usually use violence and acts of terror to suppress
political opposition and dissent, and may use death squads to carry
out assassinations and "disappearances". Although secret
police normally do not exist in democratic states, there are different varieties of democracy and, in
times of emergency or war, a democracy may lawfully grant its policing
and security services additional or sweeping powers, which may be
seen or construed as a secret police.

In a dystopian alternate history timeline depicted in Frederik Pohl's "The Coming of the Quantum
Cats", the FBI developed into a full-fledged secret
police, having in that alternate United States powers and modes of
operation reminiscent of the Soviet KGB.

In Star
Trek, the Cardassian Obsidian Order is undoubtedly a secret
police agency; it extensively surveilled the public and caused
Cardassians suspected of disloyalty to "disappear". The Romulan Tal Shiar and, to a lesser
extent, the Federation's Section 31 also resemble secret police.